


the difference between accidents and disasters

by poeelektra



Category: Stumptown (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Male-Female Friendship, No Plot/Plotless, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:54:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23934922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poeelektra/pseuds/poeelektra
Summary: When they first met, Dex clocked Grey for the kind of guy whose pockets you check before he leaves your house. Since she was definitely the kind of girl whose pockets also needed frisking, it didn’t bother her.
Relationships: Grey McConnell & Dex Parios, Grey McConnell/Dex Parios
Comments: 7
Kudos: 51





	the difference between accidents and disasters

**Author's Note:**

> Multifandom Quarantine Ficathon. Prompt: Dex/Grey, unhinged
> 
> Thanks to [altri_uccelli](http://archiveofourown.org/users/altri_uccelli/pseuds/altri_uccelli) for the solid editing pass even though she's never heard of these dummies, and to [lowriseflare](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lowriseflare/pseuds/altri_uccelli) for weighing in on post-catharsis boning (it's not her fault there isn't any).

When they first met, Dex clocked Grey for the kind of guy whose pockets you check before he leaves your house. Since she was definitely the kind of girl whose pockets also needed frisking, less by form than by circumstance, it didn’t bother her overmuch.

†

They fucked.

Then they were friends. 

That wasn’t how it usually went for her, either that way or in the reverse direction. Dex had pretty much managed to keep friendship and fucking decoupled in her life before Grey. 

It didn’t make him special. It just made him . . . Grey.

†

He’s special for Ansel though, she will grant him that. It’s not that he’s always treated Ansel like he’s anyone else—Dex doesn’t give out brownie points for basic fucking humanity. It’s that theirs is a relationship built on shared interests and genuine mutual affection. 

When Ansel got really into the idea of skateboarding, Grey helped him do all the research, went with him to skate shops, tracked down cheap beginner decks for them. He made sure all Ansel’s safety gear was firmly in place, then wiped out trying to ollie over a cinderblock at the skate park himself. When they got home Ansel was unharmed and Grey was a few layers of skin lighter, but both of them were grinning.

“I told Grey he needed elbow pads, too,” Ansel said in preemptive defense as Dex surveyed the damage.

“Welp. You were an accessory to this crime. I think that means First Aid is on you.”

Ansel caught the kit she lobbed at him, beaming.

Grey offers a steadiness and reliability that Ansel wasn’t lucky enough to be granted in any of his genetic relatives. Dex has thought more than once that her brother deserves better than the family he was born into. Grey is that something better, if a little messed up himself, and for that reason she makes an exception to her decoupling rule. 

It was past time something did for them, so she doesn’t waste a lot of time marveling when it actually works. They fucked. Now they’re friends. She can count on him in a pinch, and for a disgusting annual green juice cleanse; he can count on her to take advantage of free alcohol every day that ends in y. 

She likes to think he gets something out of it, too, even if she’s never worked out what exactly.

†

When Liz comes along, Dex likes her fine. As much as she needs to like any girl Grey is going to bang for a few weeks, anyway. It’s not like he makes them audition for her. Liz is pleasant to look at and not an idiot. Dex returns the courtesy by making an effort not to be visibly offended by her presence. She harshes Dex’s mellow a little, but she’s also disposable. Most temporary things are tolerable.

When Liz doesn’t disappear in Grey’s regular-ish rinse-and-repeat girlfriend cycle, Dex’s mellow stands up and takes notice. It files an objection, and when that doesn’t work, her subconscious goes full nuclear on the situation. 

The aftermath isn’t pretty. Dex isn’t great at apologies under the best of circumstances, and they’re a far cry from that. She tries, though.

“Pizza and movies tonight? This month’s theme is John Hughes.”

Grey shrugs, evasive. 

“Sure, maybe. Depends on traffic in here.”

“Come on. If you don’t show up to vote Ansel down I’m gonna end up watching Beethoven for the 900th time.”

“Well, that’s almost enough to get me not to come.”

He doesn’t quite meet her eyes, but he’s got a half-smirk, and the set of his shoulders no longer screams ‘open hostility,’ so. She thinks they’re gonna be okay.

†

The first time they slept together, Dex was blackout drunk. The second time they slept together she was regular-drunk, and it was because she won an argument over whether it was fair that Grey could remember their hookup when she couldn’t. 

“I’m just saying, you have full knowledge of,” she gestured down her body, “all of _this_.”

“Yes. Yes I do.”

“And I don’t have,” she gestured at him, unruly beard and well-worn flannel shirt that she’d definitely stolen twice. Dex suspected Ansel of smuggling back to Grey.

“And whose fault is that?”  


“This isn’t about fault, this is about quid pro quo. Which nudity always should be.”

“So it's not that you want to sleep with me, you just believe strongly in justice,” Grey clarified.

“Exactly!” Dex was pleased he was catching on. “So if I win this game, we get a do-over one-night stand.”

The bar was empty an hour after last call. They got distracted by a game of Cricket during clean-up. Grey glanced at the dart board where Dex had already potted two bullseyes.

“And if I win this game? What do I get?” He was leaning in close, and three whiskeys deep Dex didn’t panic even a little at the look he gave her. 

“The opportunity to sleep with me a second time, obviously.”

“Of course,” he said, eyes crinkling with his smile.

Dex won.

After, she let her breathing slow to normal, enjoyed the lassitude. Post-orgasm was the only time Dex was ever truly relaxed. She hoped it was good for him at the end there, because she was focused on other things. It usually was for guys, she figured. Guys were easy. It didn’t occur to her to ask.

When it felt like the cool air had evaporated most of the sweat from her skin, she heaved herself upright. She must’ve telegraphed her intent because Grey was sitting up in an instant, loose hand cupping her shoulder. 

“Hey, do you wanna . . ..” 

His eyes searched her face like she was a safe he was trying to crack. Dex wondered what he expected to find there. With the ease of someone who’s had lots of practice, she pinched the thrumming emotional string. She'd filed the thought away by the time she had her pants on. 

“Yeah. Okay.” He never completed his question.

“See you tomorrow?” she said when she’d located both socks. Grey had pulled on a Blazer’s t-shirt, was standing by the bed with arms crossed.

“Tomorrow,” he confirmed, face inscrutable.

The next day she sidled up to the bar at the Bad Alibi before a client meeting and he served her beer without being asked, same as ever. Steady on.

†

Things start to fall apart for Dex after the intelligence file; after finding and losing her aunt all at once, discovering the truth about Benny’s death. The could-haves and might-have-beens stack up in her brain faster than she can vanquish them. The alcohol anesthetizes them less and less. She pushes Hoffman too hard, loses the ground she thought she'd recovered in their friendship.

Ansel keeps her getting out of bed each morning, but just barely. She feels cranked to 11 and simultaneously running on fumes. In the back of her mind, somewhere, she’s knows it’s unsustainable, but the knowledge feels academic, irrelevant to the truth of each day, which is: she has to get up. She has to shower, beat the pavement for work, and solve cases. She has to keep a roof over their heads, keep them together.

But the center can’t hold. 

†

When she cracks it’s something banal. Just so ostentatiously, comically straw-sized relative to the proverbial camel's load that Dex will almost laugh when she reflects on it after the fact. 

She’s just wrapped a disappearing wife case. The wife’s disappearance had less to do with nefarious mystery and everything to do with the appearance of an old flame. Dex found them in a roadside motel 70 miles down I-5. It was disappointing for everyone, but at least she got paid.

She’s on her second victory beer, shooting the shit with Grey, when she notices the booth of frat boys giving Ansel a hard time.

It’s not the worst thing she’s seen, no mawkish impressions or outright bullying. Just not-so-furtive glances and laughter. Humanity are assholes, the sky is blue. Dex learned a long time ago that if she punched everyone who looked sideways at Ansel, she’d have permanently split knuckles. 

People (Grey) think she has no self-restraint but people (Grey) don’t have a clue how many people she _doesn’t_ punch on your average day.

She watches Ansel make a few more trips to the booth, back to back, like he’s filling petty, toying requests. 

“Mikey Jr.’s got a tournament in Eugene and my dad and Darlene asked if I wanted to make a weekend of it.”

“Mmmhmm.”

It would never occur to Ansel to tell a table full of douchebags to go fuck themselves on their third request for a new bottle of ketchup. He’s too good. Dex got both their shares of short-tempered meanness.

She’s got enough practice reading people to be fairly certain that they’re speculating whether Ansel will catch on if they stiff him on the bill. The thought, and the indignation it evokes, is kindling. It rattles around for a few minutes with all the other flotsam, her background rage, each carefully cultivated but directionless spike. 

“But I don’t know, leaving the bar with Tookie for a whole weekend again? Seems high-risk for coming back to find it converted into a high-concept mariachi karaoke joint.”

Grey’s getting harder to follow, her attention narrowing on the booth across the bar. She watches Ansel deliver another round and two baskets of fries. Their next burst of laughter, just after his back is turned, is the spark. 

She’s at their table before she registers giving her feet the instruction to move.

“Hey, what’s so funny?” 

She smiles brightly, teeth bared. The boys trade glances, too drunk to mask their smug certainty that everything in this bar and this world exists to serve them. One tries to play dumb, though.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, lady. You wanna have a seat, let me buy you a drink?” 

He spreads his legs, adjusts his hips suggestively. His friends titter, elbowing each other like this was a display of unprecedented wit. 

“What I want is for you to apologize to my brother. Then I want you to apologize to your mothers for being the embarrassing shitstains you are. Then I want you to pool your bag of tiny dicks and see if you can come up with as much manliness between you as the guy you’re laughing at because his face and his voice weren’t manufactured in the same jerkoff factory that yours were.”

Half of them are snorting in their fists by the time she finishes. The target of her ire raises his brows, face gone mean.

“What if, instead of all that, you just come sit on my face. You’re a little old, but those legs would probably look good riding me.”

An animal thing unfurls in Dex’s chest, rage boiling over. Her fist connects to his face with a satisfying crunch.

“You _bitch_ , what the fuck?!” 

He’s out of the booth, blood streaming down his face onto his pastel button-down, and this time when she throws a punch, he deflects, hits back. She dimly registers yelling behind them, some dishes clattering, but she’s gone feral. Her fury is ecstatic to have found a target that lacks the sense to back down from a fight.

Her foot connects with something soft. Pain radiates through her right eye. She careens into a table, puddles of beer and crash of glasses.

Someone has her in a full-body embrace and she jerks, throws elbows and stomps their feet until she realizes it’s Grey. He’s yelling. So’s Tookie. So’s the douchebag as he shakes off the hands of two of his friends, feels his nose.

“Crazy cunt,” he spits.

“Hey, out of here! All of you, right now! Tookie?” 

Grey’s arms are as firm as his voice, holding her in place. He speaks in a lower register just for her. 

“Jesus, Dex. What the fuck? You can’t just start whaling on a guy. You’re lucky that kid punched you back or you could be looking at assault charges.”

Dex can’t bring herself to care about that. As her rage-haze clears she catches sight of Ansel on the periphery of the fracas, eyes wide, terrified. Self-loathing crashes in atop the receding wave of adrenaline.

Grey’s voice switches from tight panic to placating when he turns to Ansel, though Dex is hearing it from the other end of a long, dark tunnel.

“You stay down here, buddy. You and Tookie can clean up the bar and I’ll clean up your sister, okay? Clock out early. We’ll call ya.” 

That last is directed at Tookie with a meaningful look. She's lucky she found Grey—fucked him—found him. Fucked-then-friended him. Ansel will be okay if Dex ever isn’t around herself. 

“Hey,” Grey gives her a little shake. “Let’s get you upstairs.”

Dex looks down at her hands, tries to remember that they are attached to her body. They’re only a little bloody, but they won’t stop shaking.

†

Upstairs she tries to bat him away but Grey persists with his ministrations. Gentle fingers palpate her nose and the bones around her eye socket. Dex winces with each press, the tissue there already swelling. 

“Shhhh, I know, I’m sorry,” he murmurs nonsensically, like he’s trying to calm a spooked horse. It doesn’t work, her heart still rabbiting in her chest. 

She tries for the part she understands.

“I’m sorry about the dishes. I’ll—.” She cuts off with a hiss as peroxide hits a gash above her brow. 

“I don’t care about my glassware, Dex.” Grey lowers the gauze, fiddles with a butterfly suture for a second before piecing her with his gaze. “I care about my friend. You went ape shit down there. I mean, I have seen you do a lot of crazy stuff, but that was.... what happened?”

If they’d just stuck to the parts she understood she might’ve been okay. Something rises in her throat, a pressure she can’t swallow, then rises further till it’s pushing at the backs of her eyes. Dex shakes her head slowly, protest and non-answer. 

Back and forth and back and forth. Once she starts she can’t stop.  
No, no, no no nonono.  
She doesn’t _know_.

His hands cradling her jaw, thumbs swiping across each cheek, are how Dex realizes she’s crying. If she talks it’ll come out sobs, so she lets her body speak her defeat, a slow lean forward that ends in collapse when he meets her halfway. 

Grey rubs a hand up and down her back as her chest caves. Her shoulders shake and she stops being aware of or caring what noises she’s making, wounded and wordless. Some part of her has been waiting so long for it to happen that it’s almost a relief to fall apart. Finally she can stop bracing against it, hustling to outpace it. The worst has happened. Will they take Ansel from her? Is she crazy?

Some of that must have tumbled out because Grey’s voice is low and fierce in her ear.

“Shhhh, hey, not a chance, okay? That’s not gonna happen. You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay, Dex.”

She doesn’t know how long it takes for it all to drain out, minutes or hours, but eventually she’s done crying. Her face is burning, a mix of the fistfight and the tears probably. The rest of her feels...empty. Lighter. Cleansed.

Grey reappears before her with a cold washcloth and a glass of water. 

“Hey, how you feeling?”

She wouldn’t know how to explain it so she just says:

“Exhausted.” Then, “thanks.”

Grey shrugs like grown women with busted faces have emotional breakdowns on him every week. 

“Tookie and Ansel closed the tills and took the food truck downtown for the rest of the day. You want a nap?”

Now that the possibility has been raised, a collapse feels imminent. She knows the way, but allows Grey to lead her to his bed anyway. Her jacket has blood on it, and her jeans, too. She sheds them before dropping between the sheets, where unconsciousness hits her like a freight train.

†

Awareness returns in stages. 

An unfamiliar bed with a familiar scent. A background noise of pain that's coalesced in a throbbing of everything above her neck. The presence of another body and the scraped-clean feeling she mostly associates with ephemeral moments after sex.

When it all comes back to her she wishes she could retreat again into blessed oblivion. 

Grey’s flat on his back beside her, atop the covers but close enough that they’re sharing body heat. Face down in a pillow that smells like him, Dex waits for the flight urge to overtake her. Shadows across the bed tell her it’s dusk, the sun on its last dying gasp. 

Her mind is quiet. Her gut—the place where her survival instincts root, and which she always heeds—is too. Embarrassment and consequence lurk on her periphery, but for now at least she feels wrapped in cotton. Safe.

Next to her Grey shifts. She takes a deep breath, swallows away some of the rawness in her throat, turns her head to face him.

“Hi,” she says, stupid. Pillow talk is not a weapon in her arsenal.

“Hi,” he replies.

Grey rolls onto his side, then raises a tentative hand in her direction. When she doesn’t react, he traces a single finger down the knobs of her spine. Even through the fabric of her t-shirt, her nerve endings light up in sequence. She shivers.

“Guess the time bomb exploded.”

“As time bombs tend to do,” he agrees. “But everybody survived. You’re still here.”

She clears her throat again, unaccountably nervous. There’s a faint tug in her gut. She thinks it comes from the place that produced the bar brawl. For the first time, she suspects it has nothing to do with survival.

“I’m . . . still here,” is what she manages to offer in return.

But it’s enough. She watches as the tension around Grey’s eyes releases. A smile emerges there instead, some minute rearrangement of muscle and meaning.

His palm comes to rest atop her sacrum. Still she doesn’t run.

_Steady on._


End file.
